


Sounds and Smell and Sights

by scifihobbit



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Occupation of Bajor, Pre-Canon, Terok Nor (Star Trek)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-02-13 14:36:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21495889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifihobbit/pseuds/scifihobbit
Summary: A collection of short stories about Nog's time on the station back when it was Terok Nor
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	1. A New Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nog figures out his place on the station, and meets one of the few other children there--a Bajoran.

** __ ** __

_ ** Rule of Acquisition #7: Keep your ears open and your eyes on the mark  
Rule of Acquisition #21: Never place friendship above profit  
Rule of Acquisition #111: Treat People in Your debt like family... exploit them** _

Nog's first impression of Terok Nor wasn't the way it sounded, like it was with most places. His father had stuffed un-milled Klingon cotton (cheap and efficient) in his ears for the whole journey to the station. They'd made the trip in the cargo hold of an Andorian freighter (cheap, but not quite efficient) and Andorian ships were notoriously noisy.

The rattling and clanking of the machinery that kept the engines running and the oxygen pumping and all the other systems functioning had echoed against the corrugated metal walls and the motley collection of strangely shaped shipping containers, creating an intricate and overwhelming cacophony. Rom had insisted Nog leave the cotton in his ears—their development was somewhat delayed and they weren't producing enough buffering wax to keep his most sensitive sense safe yet—and had led him around the ship by the hand when they needed to leave the cargo hold for food (included in the fare and nutritious enough for Ferengi, if not particularly palatable). Or, occasionally, just to look out a window. Watching the stars rushing past alleviated the dizzying effect of space travel a little bit.

So, Nog, at just barely eight years old, stumbled onto the station practically deaf—everything muffled through that thick padding of cotton Rom had checked fastidiously over the duration of the voyage—and blinking in the dull Cardassian lighting, waiting for his eyes to adjust after the brightness of the Andorian vessel.

He couldn't see anything. He couldn't hear anything. He was clutching the hem of his father's jacket with one hand, and dragging a bag behind him with the other. And he smelled something burning. He'd learn to recognize it later as the warning sign that some circuit or other was about to short out, that a wire somewhere had fried and another of the station's tenuous systems was about to cause mayhem, but then he'd never smelled anything like it before. It was sharp and acrid and it stung his nostrils. He felt his eyes watering.

As they walked through the station, stumbling toward Quark's bar—Nog still keeping a death grip on the back of Rom's jacket—the smell got more complex. It started to include the reek of unwashed and over-worked Bajorans, another smell he'd never encountered before. Musty, yeasty, and with a hint of something like the night-blooming flowers on Ferenginar. The Cardassians didn't seem to have a scent at all. There was the cloying sticky smell of machine oil, every gear in the station seemed to be drenched with it. And the hot, bright, metallic sheen on top of everything of the ore being processed, the minerals smelted out of it—that smelled like latinum, a smell that Nog already knew how to identify, even if he hadn't encountered it many times before.

\---

Everything was still muffled when they turned into Quark's bar, the cotton in Nog's ears too carefully placed to be jostled loose by a stumbling, bumbling walk through Terok Nor. His eyes had finally adjusted though, and turning into Quark's was the first time he saw more than a splash or drip of color on the space station. It was still dull and muted, but the orange and red light display in the barroom's middle at least reminded Nog of home a little bit. It was patterned like the opulent banners wealthier Ferengi would drape from their homes to advertise their prosperity and convince others they worth soliciting for business opportunities and investments. Those banners were woven from threads that sparkled even more brightly when damp—Ferenginar's rain making them glimmer in the faint rays of sun that broke through the clouds. The muted red and orange lights in Quark's made Nog think of the flag his grandmother had been sewing before they left. It had been dry while she stitched it, and quite dull. Sometimes she would joke around, wrapping it about herself like a garment and parading across the room. She would proclaim that she was wearing clothes and wink at Nog.

Nog's grandmother had mostly intimidated him, but suddenly he missed her fiercely. He wasn't getting back to Frenginar any time soon. She wasn't going to around to nuzzle her nose against his after he woke shrieking from a nightmare or recite the Rules to him while sharpening his teeth. And even if she'd scared him, this place scared him more. He didn't want to be here.

“You're late!” Quark had pushed his way through the crowd in the bar and was standing in front of them.

Nog peered up at his uncle. He didn't recognize him, but he remembered his voice; its sharp, biting tone. Dropping the hem of his father's coat, he immediately made the Ferengi position of supplication, hands cupped, knees bent.

His father did the same. “Sorry, Brother. You know how those Andorian freighters can be. No sense of punctuality. And falling apart half the time. I had to rebuild the ship's main--”

“I don't care,” Quark waved a hand and Rom stopped talking immediately.

He crouched down briefly to look Nog in the eye. Nog shrank from his gaze. “Is this your son? He's barely grown at all. Is mother not softening his food for him?”

“You know how she hates to do that,” Rom said. He wasn't making the official position of supplication any more, but he was still cowering. Nog could feel him doing it more than he could see it and it embarrassed Nog. Though, at only eight, he wouldn't have been able to explain why.

“Well, is he strong enough to carry a tray at least?”

\---

Quark put them to work immediately, bags stored in the stockroom till closing. He started Nog out as a busboy, as this took minimal instruction and Nog's small frame allowed him to sidle up to tables almost unnoticed. He could clear them before their occupants had even noticed it was happening. This was a skill Nog would hone. Quark would make him practice it because, according to him, more than half the time the drinkers just wanted to play with their glasses. If they had something to keep their hands busy they wouldn't think to order another drink. But they couldn't complain about an empty glass being cleared, it was just a reminder it was empty. A blank spot on the table needed to be filled.

That first day, though, Nog didn't try anything nearly so advanced. It wasn't even till two hours in that Rom remembered the cotton deafening his son and removed the plugs.

The bar wasn't as loud as the Andorian freighter had been, but it was loud. When Rom pulled out the cotton Nog recoiled at first, curling his spine and hunching his shoulders around his chest.

Rom tilted his head. “Only 67 decibels. Should be alright. And you've got to start getting your lobes used to this station.” Then he scurried off, tucking the cotton into some recess of his jacket that Nog didn't see.

He looked around, the conversation and laughter having suddenly gone from a patter to a thunderstorm. Before Quark could catch him standing still, he jogged up the spiral staircase to the second level to check if there were any empty plates or glasses up there. That's when he saw the Bajoran.

Nog couldn't tell if the child was a boy or a girl (though he did know that Bajorans, and Cardassians too, came in boy and girl varieties, and boy and girl varieties only. Rom had explained that much to him. They all wore clothes and had tiny ears though, tinier than his grandmother's, so Nog didn't know how he was supposed to tell one from the other.) The Bajoran was huddled under a table in one of the darkest corners, near the back entrance, and scraping the remaining food on a plate hurriedly into a wide mouth with strangely blunt teeth.

“Hey!” Nog said, grabbing the plate out of the child's hands, “Give me that! Did you pay for it?”

The child stared up at Nog, already large brown eyes even larger, crouched, ready to dart in any direction, but unmoving. The child smelled musty and yeasty like the other Bajorans Nog had sensed on his way from the airlock to the bar. It felt like forever since Nog had seen a humanoid smaller than himself. There was a burning at the back of his own eyes that Nog usually associated with pain or an unpleasant sensory experiences—like his father's shrieking or having his lobes pinched. He didn't know why he was responding this way to the unblinking stare of the Bajoran crouched in front of him.

“Well, don't let me catch you stealing food again!” he snapped, trying to sound like his uncle. He was already sure that if he was going to survive here he'd have to imitate his uncle and not his father.

He cleared as many more dishes as he could fit into an armload, but he left two unfinished meals behind, worried he'd break the dishes (cheap and flimsy) if he tried to add them to his pile.

\---

Nog hadn't known what time it was when they'd arrived on the station. And he didn't know what time it was when his uncle finally grabbed the broom he'd been pushing listlessly around the bar out of his hands.

“Alright,” his uncle said. “Day's profits are counted, and I'm obviously not going to get anything useful out of the two of you till you've had some sleep. Come on. Follow me. I'll show you where my quarters are.”

“Thank you, Brother,” Rom said, scrambling out from behind the bar where he'd been stacking mugs and falling just one step behind Quark. He nudged Nog with his elbow.

Nog rubbed his eyes blearily and looked up, trying to figure out what his father wanted. Rom gestured at Quark's back emphatically with his eye ridge, and then with his whole head.

“Oh, thank you,” Nog mumbled, making the position of supplication, even though his uncle was facing the opposite direction, and then jogging two steps to catch up.

Everything they passed as they followed Quark to the turbolifts was dark and shuttered, though Quark gestured at the occasional sign or doorway and mentioned what that establishment was, what sort of threat it posed to the bar.

Even if it was darker and a little quieter, the smell was still strong. Nog wondered how long he'd been awake. Nog wondered what there was to eat on this station. Nog wondered if he was going to spend the rest of his life feeling like his skin was dry and flaking. It had been raining when they left Ferenginar. It was always raining on Ferenginar. And Nog hadn't even thought about it, hadn't even noticed it, but now after so many days in still, dry air he felt like every part of him itched.

There was a shuffling sound off to the right, and Nog looked over. His father was holding his hand, trailing just behind Quark, nodding at everything Quark said. Nog was trailing even farther behind, tripping over his own feet every few steps.

A pair of eyes glowed at him from where the shuffling noise had come from. They were huge and brown like the eyes of the Bajoran child that had been stealing food in Quark's earlier. As soon as Nog saw them they blinked closed and there were more shuffling noises, disappearing into a vent or a crawlspace—Nog could hear a muffled metallic clang as the figure slipped away.

“Uncle,” Nog said.

“Hm?” Quark interrupted his own monologue to look back over his shoulder at Nog.

“Do Bajorans ever eat at your bar?”

“Ha! My establishment will serve anyone who can pay, but I've never seen a Bajoran with enough latinum for a fried vole tail, never mind a drink or a meal.”

No one asked Nog why he'd brought it up, so he didn't bother explaining. He'd learn the usefulness of silence quite quickly on Terok Nor.

\---

To say that Nog fell into a routine would suggest that being on this hot, dry, dark station floating in the middle of space started to feel normal. It never did. He did start to know what he was doing every day, though. His shift—like his uncle's and his father's—lasted basically as long as the bar was open. He spent most of that time cleaning and stocking and busing tables, and any other thing he was told to do. On occasion, if they were short-staffed, he would take on the role of waiter for a bit. At the end of the day, he'd walk back with his father to the quarters they shared. In the morning, they'd wake up and do it again.

That was all he saw of the station. His uncle's bar, his father's quarters, the corridors in between, his uncle's bar, his father's quarters, the corridors in between. Rom wouldn't let him spend time anywhere else. Not like there was anywhere else to spend time. Just about every aspect of the station seemed threatening in one way or another. From the clanging, banging, accident-prone ore processors to the neurocine gas stored in the bulkheads just waiting for an excuse to leak out (Rom had stumbled across that booby trap trying to repair a replicator) there was nowhere designed for a child to be, or even a place that was tangentially safe or welcoming to one.

At night, Nog would fall asleep to the sounds of his father rattling around in their quarters' bulkheads making minor adjustments and repairs, by-passing certain safeguards and systems. When Rom finally stopped to get whatever few hours of sleep he enjoyed, the silence would wake Nog up and he would lie in bed, sure that he could feel the station spinning. Sure that it was spinning faster and faster. He'd grip the bed under him and hope the station didn't start turning so fast it slammed him against the wall. In the silence and the spinning he'd get dizzy. His whole sense of balance had been off since they'd left Ferenginar. His inner ear hated space. The gravity was fake. The sounds were fake. Both of them by turns too strong or too weak so that he couldn't ever settle into anything.

When he told his father about the station's spinning and how he thought it might crush him, Rom explained that Ferenginar had spun, too. Nog didn't quite believe him. It felt different. The sensation wasn't as strong closer to the center of the station, so on quiet days Nog would find the darkest corners of the bar he could to curl up in, hands over his ears, and sleep until Quark found him and shook him awake, with a list of tasks at least ten items long that needed doing—and that he'd better remember, because if he came back to ask what one of the tasks had been later, he'd just end up with five more to do as well.

Nog didn’t know about the times when the bar was a little slower and there were fewer glasses to be cleared and his uncle would see him curled tight as a tube grub and smile, maybe, just a little bit, and turn back to his own business. Nog got to sleep through those times.

\---

It was during one of these brief, stolen naps that he saw the Bajoran child again. His hands were over his ears, but the rustling and scraping were enough to wake him up anyway. They were different enough from the sounds he'd been ignoring so he could sleep that a part of his brain jolted him awake. When his eyes popped open the Bajoran child was staring at him. Nog wondered whether the child had noticed him before this moment, or whether the child had just sought out the darkest corner to scarf food in as well and was surprised by the sudden movement.

Nog was already unsure of exactly how long he'd been on Terok Nor, but it felt like a long time. He no longer felt the same proprietary fervor about his uncle's bar as he had the day he arrived. He wanted to be a good Ferengi, but that meant making allies (potential business partners) more than it did remaining loyal to family that was treating him as unpaid labor. (Supposedly Nog earned a slip of latinum every week, but that was just added to Rom's salary, and Nog was already starting to wonder how carefully his father counted his pay.) So Nog didn't snap at the cowering Bajoran, who was still staring at Nog, waiting for him to make the first move.

“Are you a boy or a girl?” Nog asked.

“Boy,” the Bajoran said and shoveled another handful of food into his mouth. “You?”

“I'm a boy.” And then he said, pulling his hands away from his ears and into his lap, “My lobes are still going to grow a lot more.”

“Oh.” The child looked from Nog to a table nearby that had an unfinished appetizer on it and back to Nog. Then he darted over to the table, grabbed the plate from it and crouched underneath. He quickly cleared the plate of food, watching Nog the whole time.

“Why do you eat leftovers?” Nog asked.

“Cardassians don't give us enough to eat. I eat here, my mom and grandfather can have my rations. Besides, tastes better than rations. Well,” and he made a face that almost exaggerated the ridges on his nose enough to make him look a little bit like a Ferengi for a moment, “most of it does.”

“How do you get in?” Nog asked. He sat up and watched the quick, jerky movements of the Bajoran's hands—they reminded him a bit of his father's gestures.

“I just walk in. People don't usually pay that much attention to me.”

“That's not true.” Nog said. “My uncle would never let you in here.”

The boy shrugged, spotted another half-eaten meal, scurried over to grab it, and then, turning back to Nog, said, “Fine. Not going to tell you how I get in, though. You'll seal it up.”

“I won't.” Nog shook his head.

“Don't trust you.”

“Wait here,” Nog said, and scampered downstairs to fetch some of the field rations (cost effective and imperishable) he knew his uncle was hoarding—although he didn't know why. But when he made it back to the dark corner of the bar there was no sign of the Bajoran child. Nog stuffed the ration pack in his pocket.

\---

He didn't know how long he carried that ration packet around. Time really was meaningless on this station, but he kept it there, ready for the child's next appearance. Nog knew that having a way to sneak in and out of his uncle's bar undetected could be extremely useful, and he was determined to convince the Bajoran boy to tell him where it was.

The next time he saw the boy wasn't in the bar, though. He was just a step behind his father, who he knew was listening to his every footfall to make sure he didn't wander off, as they walked to their quarters after a shift. There was that fencing that created a barricade to keep the Bajorans caged close to the ore processing machinery. There were always lots of them huddled on the other side, sleeping, groaning, holding each other. Nog tried not to look at them as he passed, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor in front of him. But a loud crash made him jump and he glanced around, eyes wide, ready to flee in any direction.

It was only the gate closing. Before Nog could fix his eyes on the ground again they skated over a small Bajoran form, whose nose ridges he recognized. The boy saw him, too, and they stared at each other through the fence for a moment. Nog squeezed the ration packet in his pocket, glanced at his father, and then darted over to the fence to shove the packet through.

The boy looked from it to Nog and back again, but he didn't take it.

“Come on,” Nog pleaded, shaking the packet.

“Nog?” His father had turned around and was going to spot him any second.

“Take it!” Nog said desperately, but the boy only continued to look at him suspiciously. Nog could hear one of the Cardassian guards shifting from foot to foot and his father walking toward him. He grunted in exasperation and said, “Fine!” dropping the ration packet on the ground on the other side of the fence. As he turned away to scurry back toward his father he saw the Bajoran boy pick the packet up and shove it into some fold of his clothing.

Rom pinched the upper curve of Nog's ear and yanked him back in the direction of their quarters. “What do you think you're doing?” he demanded, eyes darting around to see who might be watching them.

“I, uh, I, thought I saw something shining over there,” Nog said in a rush, nearly tripping as he tried to keep up with his father's frantically quick stride. “It might've been some lost jewelry or something!”

“Do you see anyone here wearing jewelry?” Rom snapped.

“The, the Bajorans.”

“They'd never lose one of their earrings.”

“I guess not, Father.” Nog was trying to get his hands into the position of supplication without losing his balance, but Rom wasn't looking back to notice.

“This isn't a place for shiny things,” Rom said so quietly that even Nog barely heard him over the crashing and clamoring of the station around them. “We're not going to find anything pretty or valuable here.”

Nog didn't respond, unsure of whether he was even supposed to have heard at all, and continued jogging to keep up with his father, even after Rom released his ear.

\---

“Psst!”

The noise sounded like the aggressive hissing sound Ferengi made to frighten off enemies or claim territory and Nog immediately shrank in response. Rounding his shoulders, bending his knees, dipping his head, curving his spine, everything he could do to make himself look smaller. Then he turned to look at the spot the hissing had come from.

The Bajoran child was behind him. His head was sticking out of a bulkhead. Nog didn't hear anyone else around, and he walked over to the bulkhead the Bajoran had disappeared back into, attempting to appear totally casual. He held the tray he was carrying with both hands so the glasses wouldn't wobble, even though he would've looked more at ease balancing it on one hand. The sound of wobbling glasses would draw more attention than the sight of him gripping it, knuckles going white.

Almost at the bulkhead, Nog set the tray on a table and quickly ducked down beneath the level of the tabletops. He made the rest of the way over to the hole in a crouch. The Bajoran child was far back in the tunnel that extended back behind the open spot, hidden in the darkness. If it weren't his earring catching the light that glanced over Nog's shoulder Nog probably wouldn't have been able to see him at all. Nog could hear him though. His breathing was shallow and careful and his heart was pounding, though when he spoke he tried to make it sound like he was perfectly calm.

“This hatch is loose.”

Nog just crouched there for a moment, stunned that his bribery had worked. He knew he shouldn't be surprised. A good Ferengi always knew when and how to apply a bribe. They were a vital part of business, but still, that was on Ferenginar. The rules here were different and no one had written them down in a numbered list and they seemed to change daily. That something as simple and foundational as a bribe had worked gave Nog a little bit of hope that maybe he'd figure this station out after all.

“Come on!” the boy hissed. “Get in! I'll show you how it works.”

Nog clambered into the conduit next to the boy. The two of them were small enough that they could hunch on hands and knees side-by-side, their shoulders just barely brushing the tunnel's walls.

The boy reached back out into the bar and grabbed the hatch he'd left leaning against the bulkhead. He slid it back into place, then, with one quick motion, pushed it down, angled it in just a little and snapped it up. There was a clicking noise. The conduit was completely dark—the station didn't recognize Ferengi or Bajoran life form as ones that should have the utility lighting turned on for them. The boy grabbed Nog's hand and guided it up to the top corner of the hatch.

“Feel that?” he asked, pressing Nog's hand against the bolt there. “Feel how it wiggles?”

“Yeah,” Nog breathed.

“Well,” and the boy seemed a little proud, sounded more like a child than he had since Nog had met him, “that makes it loose enough that you can lever it out, if you do it at the right angle. Down, out, up. Try it.”

Nog did. The panel rattled and didn't come loose, but Nog could hear what it was doing, and what he'd done wrong. He shuffled a little closer, the knees of his pants catching and tearing against the grating of the floor, and tried again. Down, out, up. This time the panel popped free, almost clattering to the ground before Nog managed to catch it.

The two boys breathed a sigh of relief in tandem.

It works the same way from the other side,” the Bajoran said, “just in reverse.”

Nog pulled the hatch flush against the wall again, and tried to slot it back into place. It took four tries this time, but he managed it.

Crouched in the dark Nog turned toward the boy and asked, “What's your name?”

“Leevan. Trell Leevan.”

“I'm Nog.”

And that was how Nog got access to Terok Nor's conduits and made his first friend on the station.


	2. A Good Female

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nog gets to know one of the dabo girls

** _  
Rule of Acquisition #9: Opportunity plus instinct equals profit  
Rule of Acquisition #190: Hear all, trust nothing  
_ **

** _   
_ **_   
_

Her earring reminded Nog of his grandmother. He’d barely known his own mother, but before Uncle Quark offered his father the job here they’d lived with his grandmother for a time. After so long on this station Nog’s memory of her consisted mostly of glittering things and warmth, a damp enveloping warmth that meant safety, not the oppressive dry heat of this station.

The earrings hung and glittered around her face the way his grandmother’s had and that’s why he was staring at her. The dabo girl caught him staring. She was used to being stared at, but not by prepubescent Ferengi. Smiling, she gestured him over. Nog’s gaze darted around, checking first to see if she was really gesturing to him, and second to make sure there weren’t any critical eyes ready to scold him for idling even a moment. She was gesturing to him. There wasn’t anyone to see.

Nog thought he’d heard the other girls calling her Ola. (He’d never heard a patron refer to a girl by name when there were so many provocative, fulsome, insulting, or vulgar words to use instead.) It was a slow afternoon at the bar. The Cardassians liked to nap under heatlamps during the middle of the day. They missed the sun when they were on the station with a ferocity that Nog would never comprehend having spent his entire childhood in the mist and under the clouds of Ferenginar.

He trotted over, tray tucked under his arm.

“Do you like shiny things as much as your uncle?” Ola tilted her neck in just such a way that light danced off her earrings even in the dimness of the bar. It made the pale blue skin of her bald head shine.

“They remind me of my grandmother,” Nog said.

Ola laughed, not quite the way she laughed to goad the gamblers into betting a bit more. This laugh made her brow crinkle and Nog could hear a roughness in the back of her throat, a particular way that her breath gusted out of her that meant this laugh wasn’t calculated, but surprised. “Generally you don’t want to tell a lady they remind you of your grandma, kid.”

“Why not?” Nog asked, and then said, “She’s nice. So are her earrings. Like yours.”

“I’ll take it as the compliment it was meant to be, then.”

Nog hadn’t really meant it as a compliment, more a statement of fact.

With the bar as empty as it was Ola decided to make Nog her entertainment, though she kept scanning the room for a likely customer. “Why do they remind you of your grandmother?” She swayed her head and the earrings flashed again. Nog watched them the way you might a hypnotist’s watch.

“They hang like hers.” he said. “And they’re big, too. Are they heavy? Hers are. I picked them up once and they weighed almost as much as a bar of latinum. I couldn't put them on, though. Not that I wanted to! I want my ears to be big, enormous, and the earrings are so heavy they keep her ears small, like a good female’s should be. I don’t think Father or Uncle Quark would say she is a good female. Father didn’t want to leave her but he knows no good Ferengi relies on a female for his latinum. No good female has any latinum to give, anyway.”

Ola was smiling at him, amused by his rambling. He was cute in his own way. She’d always liked Ferengi noses and his scrunched when he talked fast in a way that reminded her of her pet urku she’d left with her parents on Bolarus IX when she came here. She wanted children, someday, but not yet, not until she’d seen much more of the quadrant.

“Do you think I’m a good female?” she asked.

“You wear clothes.”

“So is that a no?”

“Well, clothes show off how wealthy you are, and females aren’t supposed to be wealthy. And when you cover your body people wonder what it looks like under all those clothes. It’s better to just see it so it’s not distracting.”

“So I’m not a good female.”

Nog shrugged uncomfortably. He liked this female’s attention, but he wasn’t sure what she wanted from him. His grandmother had always said what she wanted. “You do have very small ears,” he said.

She laughed again and Nog’s chest puffed out a little. He liked it when she laughed. He liked it when he made her laugh.

“You know,” Ola said, leaning down to whisper to him, “by your rules, I’m not a good female, but your uncle isn’t such a good Ferengi, either.” Her breath smelled like that drink Uncle Quark claimed was his specialty, a Star Drifter.

Nog’s eyes widened. He glanced around, checking to make sure no one could hear before asking, “Why? How?” Of course whatever her answer was Nog couldn’t trust the lies of a female over the word of his father and Uncle Quark. Still, he wanted to know.

“He relies on me for his latinum, doesn’t he?” She grinned, and even winked. A few of the other dabo girls were eavesdropping on the conversation, as bored with the afternoon as Ola was. One of them chuckled and then quickly turned back to her wheel.

“What?” Nog was indignant. “No he doesn’t!”

“I spin the wheel. I get the customers to place high bets, and even higher bets after that.” She made her voice low and sultry. “And all with just a little bit of this.” She cocked a hip and pouted. “Can’t you do better than that, hon? I know you can.” She leaned forward, pressing her breasts together and giggled that fake giggle Nog had heard before. She leaned back and flicked her wrist. “Fine, if you’re not man enough to play till you win.”

Nog watched the display rapt. “That makes them spend more latinum?”

“Every time, kid. Every time.”

One of the waiters walked by and knocked Nog’s shoulder. “There are tables need clearing,” he snapped, then stalked off grumbling something about children in this environment.

Nog scrambled off, looking back over his should at Ola as he went.

\---

Another slow afternoon a few days later Ola caught Nog by the wrist as he scurried by. He froze, ready to be chastised. “Do you want to help a lady out?”

Nog did his usual glance around to check if anyone was watching. “How?” His first impulse had been to say, ‘Yes!’ but he was quickly learning to suppress his first instincts around here.

“Do you know what this is?” She gestured under the dabo table without looking, a movement so nonchalant it was barely noticeable. The odds regulator was stuck just under the table’s edge.

Nog only waffled for a moment. He knew the line, and forcing as much disbelief and injured outrage as he could he said, “How did that get there? Uncle Quark doesn’t allow devices like that in his bar! Are you cheating our fine customers?”

“Oh, how silly of me,” Ola said. “Of course. Your uncle runs a very reputable establishment. There isn’t one underneath every table in here. This must have just crawled in on its own and jumped up under there to hide out.”

Nog narrowed his eyes at her. He hadn’t thought any of the girls knew. This didn’t seem like the kind of information Uncle Quark would trust them with.

“I thought we might make a deal, you and I,” Ola said. She took a step forward and her dress shimmered.

“What sort of deal?” Nog glanced around quickly again. He did his best to adopt the tone his uncle used when he was negotiating, that insinuating leer that made his clients squirm.

The corners of Ola’s mouth twitched, unable to hide her amusement at this boy’s pantomime of adulthood. She quickly brought her face under control, though. He could still be useful to her, and she’d make sure he benefited at least a little in the end. At the very least the proposition she was making would provide him with valuable life experience.

“You’re going to change the odds when they need adjusting. That way I don’t have to keep sneaking my hand down there all the time. I’ll keep the customers’ eyes on me and you’ll just happen by and tap it, or totally accidentally drop a glass right under the table. None of the customers will expect a kid as young as you to be in on this sort of thing. Not even a Ferengi kid. Besides, I’ll keep their eyes on me the entire time.”

Nog had narrowed his eyes. He knew how the odds regulator worked. Uncle Quark had shown him. He hadn’t adjusted one on the floor though, in the thick of things. And what was he going to get out of this anyway?

And then Ola told him. “I’ll give you a slip of latinum from my tips after every shift where you help me out.”

Nog’s stomach jumped and his ears tingled. He had yet to earn his own profit. Whatever wages he made at the bar—if he made any at all, Nog knew Uncle Quark deducted living expenses from his pay and he wasn’t sure how much that came to, or how much he made—went to his father.

“I’ll do it,” he said with a decisive nod of his head.

\---

At first Nog only stopped by Ola’s table once or twice a day. She would crook the pinky finger on either her left or right hand. Right meant raise the odds, left meant lower them. As he got good at it though she signaled him over more and more. He would brush by and pretend to trip, catching himself on the table so that his hand landed right on the regulator. He would tap the underside of the table with his tray as he passed. Ola would promise her customer she had a lucky dabo ball and send Nog off for it; when he came back he’d slide a hand under the table as he passed it over. He lost track of the number of forks he dropped under the table, or the slippery puddles he had to mop up.

As he came over more often he started to notice one particular Cardassian who always seemed to be there. His neck ridges were larger than average, and he never seemed to be able to keep his hair slicked back to regulation standards. He was always standing too close to Ola, touching her too much. Sometimes he would come up behind her and watch the dabo wheel over her shoulder, hands on her hips. Nog could see that he was squeezing them, Ola’s dress wrinkling under his grip.

Nog wanted to do something about it, but he didn’t know what he could. There were one or two customers Uncle Quark had banned from the bar, but that was only under the most extreme circumstances. If they broke something every time they came in, or started fights with other customers regularly. This Cardassian wasn’t doing near enough for Uncle Quark to consider banning him.

Nog tried talking to Ola about it at the end of one of her shifts. “Why don’t you send that Cardassian to another table? Why do you let him squeeze you like that?”

“Honey,” Ola said simply, “he’s the biggest tipper of them all,” and slid Nog his slip of latinum.

\---

Six days later Ola came in with one eyelid swollen and a blooming bruise on her cheek just below. There were scratches down that side of her face and a ring of bruises around her neck. Her nose was slightly askew. Nog noticed she was wearing her largest, shiniest earrings and her flimsiest dress to draw as much attention away from her face as possible. She hadn’t painted her forehead with the grayish blue spot the Cardassians found so alluring. She’d only just stepped up to her usual wheel when Quark rushed over.

“What are you doing here?” he hissed. “You can’t spin looking like that. No one will come near this wheel!”

“It’ll be fine. I’ll make you double the tips I usually do.”

Quark snorted. “Not like that you won’t. Who’s going to tip a face like that?” Quark employed a range of dabo girls from all sorts of races, recognizing that his customers had all sorts of tastes, but no one wanted a girl whose face was pulped. Well, some did, but he offered them the holosuites to make everyone more comfortable.

“I won’t even keep my percentage of the tips,” Ola said, “just my day’s wages.” Her voice was almost pleading now.

“Percentage?” Quark scoffed. “You don’t get a percentage. You get a bonus of my choosing if you’ve brought in enough to deserve it. Those are two very different things. Not that I’d expect a Bolian to know the difference, but I do expect my girls to know at least the basics of numbers.”

“My lodging on the station is already tenuous,” she said. “I need this day’s wages. You don’t want to lose one of your best girls.”

“Quark’s Bar has a reputation to maintain. I won’t have you spinning looking like that. Go home.”

Ola gave Quark one last look and then stepped quickly out of the bar, back straight, head high. Nog watched her go.

\---

There was a Telerite merchant boasting at the bar. “I got the top of the line medical supplies from that federation outpost for practically nothing!” He leaned over to the uninterested Cardassian sitting at the stool next to him and said, “Told them there was a humanitarian emergency in the Capula system and they believed me! Handed over those supplies at almost half of what they’re worth quicker than a comet’s tail.” He continued crowing about the deal he’d made, not even close to caring that no one was listening. Well, no one except Nog.

After more drinks than Nog could count the Telerite stumbled toward the door. Nog stopped him on his way out. “Hey!” he whispered. “Hey!”

The Telerite looked around confused, before eventually realizing the hissing was coming from below him and looking down. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice not exactly friendly.

“A dermal regenerator,” Nog said. A plan had been forming in his mind as he’d been listening to the Telerite ramble. It had almost come together. He just needed to figure out a few more pieces of it. “And some soporif pills.” Nog had seen Uncle Quark slip soporif pills in customers’ drinks when they got too rowdy—they were a better alternative than banning a customer entirely. Just a sliver of one, to make the folks who got too rowdy after a few drinks sluggish and spacey.

“How might you pay for such items?” The Telerite slurred.

“Walk with me,” Nog said, aping a phrase and tone he’d heard his uncle use many times. He herded the Telerite out of the bar as best he could given their difference in size, but the Telerite wasn’t resisting. Nog shot a look over his shoulder to make sure no one saw him go. He’d use one of the crawlspaces Trell had shown him to sneak back in unnoticed.

“I bet you like to gamble,” Nog said as they made their way down the promenade.

“A business man like myself doesn’t gamble,” the Telerite said, “he knows the odds before the game even begins.”

“Perfect!” Nog said.

The Telerite gave him a confused look through blurry eyes.

“I can fix the odds on the dabo wheel,” Nog explained. There was a rattling hiss and a clank from somewhere to their left. Nog made sure not to look over at it. He always did his best not to look around when he was on the promenade, or anywhere besides the bar, he didn’t like to see what else was going on on the station.

“Place your biggest bets and I’ll get you three wins in a row—more than that and my uncle will start to get suspicious. Then,” he said, steering the Telerite around a metal beam that lay haphazardly across the walkway, “you give me the dermal regenerator and enough soporif pills to knock out a targ.” Nog had never seen a targ, and wasn’t even exactly sure what they were, but he knew people used them as measurements of ferocity and stamina all the time. He imagined they were like a kalt, the large venomous frogs that infested sewers on Ferenginar. He was barely as tall as a kalt’s foreleg was long. It would take a lot of soporif to knock kalt out.

After staring at Nog for a few moments longer the Telerite made a gesture of assent. “I’ll be back tomorrow night,” he said. “And if I win what you say I’ll win you can have your regenerator and soporif.”

The Telerite started to walk away. Nog grabbed his sleeve. “Wait, I want half the soporif up front, to prove you’re serious.”

“A quarter,” the Telerite shot back.

Nog nodded once. and then he scurried off as fast as he could, hoping no one had noticed his absence from the bar.

\---

Each moment of the next day was agonizing. Nog’s palms were sweaty and he couldn’t even count the number of glasses he’d almost dropped. At least he’d only really dropped one, and that had been a stein for blood wine, so it hadn’t shattered as it hit the floor. He’d bumped into four different customers while he kept his eyes fixed on the door, waiting for the Telerite. Three of them had been appeased by a quick crouch of Ferengi supplication. One of them had tried to backhand him but Nog ducked and was behind the bar fetching another drink before the customer knew where he’d gone.

About halfway through the day Ola came in. She was wearing her other dress. (The one Nog thought of as her “other” dress anyway. She only had the two and she saved this one for nights she was expecting a bigger crowd.) The one that shimmered so much it sent prisms floating across the room. Her shiniest earrings were hanging from her ears. There were bangles on her wrists that glowed and tinkled when she moved her hands, a sound like a brook over pebbles. Everything she wore did as much as it could to distract from her face. The swelling had gone down some and whatever she’d painted over the bruising with almost matched her skin tone. In the dim light of the bar it was barely noticeable unless you knew what you were looking for.

Uncle Quark looked at her when she came in. He studied her face and then shrugged slightly, tilting his chin toward her usual dabo table. She stepped up to it and had the players lapping up losses out of her palm in no time.

It couldn't have been more than half an hour since she came in when she started flicking hand gestures at Nog. He tried to run over and do what she asked when he could. He tried to keep the glasses on his tray balanced. He tried to keep his eye on the door watching for the Telerite. He just couldn’t, so before he dropped something more important than a stein or ran into someone more dangerous than an over-fed Nausicaan he whispered up at Ola, “I can’t tonight!”

The glance she dropped down at him was so betrayed Nog felt his lobes shrivel. She turned quickly back to the wheel as if nothing had happened. She would understand, he told himself. If only he could get this all to work she would understand and everything would be better.

Finally, the Telerite blustered in.

Nog ran up to him. “Can I want you a drin?” he stammered, trying for either “Can I get you a drink” or “Do you want a spin” and ending up with the useless jabber in between. He had to be calm. No one could know what he was doing. Not Uncle Quark, not Ola, not a single one of the Cardassians in the place. No one.

The Telerite dropped a small purse on the floor and Nog squatted down and jammed it in his pocket. Whatever was inside felt like maybe it could be pills. The Telerite wandered off and Nog ran behind the bar to check. Crouching down, pretending like he was looking for a seldom used bottle on the bottom shelf, Nog peered into the purse. There were small white capsules inside. He pinched one between his fingers and brought it close to his face. He wasn’t really sure how he would know that it was what the Tellerite said it was. He licked it furtively, but that didn’t reveal anything useful.

The Telerite was laughing uproariously somewhere in the bar. Bets were being placed at the dabo wheel. Nog had to get back out there. His knees wouldn’t unbend and take him out there. Anxiety was freezing across his skin. He couldn’t get caught. He couldn’t go out there.

Uncle Quark was serving a customer over Nog’s head. “What are you doing?” He hissed, using the side of his foot to nudge Nog off balance. “Get back out there!”

“Yes, Uncle!” Nog stepped back around the edge of the bar and took a deep breath. He took just a moment to let his ears pick up the soundscape of the entire establishment before moving over to the table where the Telerite was placing his first bid. He was placing that bid at Ola’s wheel.

Fear froze Nog again. Why hadn’t he told the Telerite not to play there? He was already placing a huge bet, the bet Nog had sworn he could double or triple even.

“Sir!” Nog said very loudly and grabbed the Telerite’s sleeve. “Sir!”

The freighter captain started to shrug him off out of habit and then looked down, confused. “What?”

Nog ran through every line he’d ever used to distract someone: ‘you dropped something,’ ‘have a drink on the house,’ ‘I think security’s watching you.’ None of them quite worked here. “Uhh, that wheel’s having a special for Telerite’s! Spin there, get a free Alterian Fizz!”

The freighter captain started to ask what an Alterian Fizz was, and then stopped, realizing that wasn’t the point. A few of the other players at the table looked around, trying to make sense of this incredibly specific deal. There wasn’t a single other Telerite in the bar.

Nog tried not to look at Ola as he steered the Telerite and his gold-pressed latinum away from her wheel, but he couldn’t help seeing the look on her face. It wasn’t just betrayed, it was angry. He repeated to himself that he’d explain it all, that she would forgive him and understand, over and over as he moved the Telerite across the bar.

The second dabo girl’s eyes gleamed when she saw the bet the Telerite was placing on the edge of her wheel, and she was distracted enough that Nog could slide the odds regulator into a more generous position.

Nog couldn’t breathe for the next half hour, but nothing went wrong. He forgot to give the Telerite his free Alterian Fizz but the Telerite certainly didn’t notice. When he strolled towards the door after winning his third jackpot of the night—Uncle Quark was just starting to catch on, and would have walked over to offer some distraction if the Telerite had placed a fourth—he had a self-satisfied grin on his face, like he’d earned any of the night’s profits for himself. He dropped another small purse just inside the exit and Nog had it in his grasp almost before it touched the floor.

Nog would have thought that he’d be able to breath then: he’d gotten what he needed, he hadn’t been caught; but he found that his chest was still tight and his lobes still burned. Ola’s wounded, betrayed, and angry glances hadn’t stopped and Nog could feel everyone boring into the back of his head.

Then that Cardassian came in. The one with the too-big neck ridges and messy hair. The one who hurt Ola. He sidled up to Ola right away, and placed a hand directly on her ass, squeezing. Ola giggled and batted her eyelashes at him.

“You, there!” he called, pointing directly at Nog. This Cardassian had gotten partial to Nog since he was always the waiter closest to Ola’s table. “Get me a kanar! Tonight’s going to be a good night. I can feel it!” and Nog saw him squeeze Ola tighter. She flinched, but managed to keep the teasing smile fixed on her face.

Nodding, Nog ran back behind the bar. He grabbed a glass and a bottle. Uncle Quark stopped him halfway. “Nah, give him the stuff two shelves down,” he said. “That man is too drunk to taste anything. Charge him for the good stuff though.”

“Uncle,” Nog began. He wanted to point out how well Ola was doing, how she was still earning tips even from the Cardassian who’d hurt her. “Look, she’s,” he trailed off.

“What?” Quark snapped. “Who’s what?”

“He’s betting,” was all Nog managed to say.

“Of course he is! I told you he was drunk. Go on, keep him that way.” And Quark made that little shooing motion with the back of his hands.

Nog dropped one soporif pill into the bottom of the kanar glass and ran it over to the messy-haired Cardassian.  
In half an hour his eyes started to lose focus. In an hour he was yawning so wide Nog could hear his jaw crack. And a little after that he stumbled from Quark’s blearily, barely staying on his feet.

\---

Quark’s had closed, the waiters were wiping down the tables, the dabo girls were counting their tips, and Nog was fiddling with the purse in his hands.

Ola deposited her pile of latinum on the counter. “I hope I made it worth your while,” she said to Quark. She was too good at her job for the comment to sound snarky even if it was, it slid through the air like silk, instead. Her gaze skated over Nog without stopping and she turned for the door.

She’d just stepped onto the promenade proper when Nog finally managed to squeak, “Wait!” and go dashing after her.

“What?” Her voice was icy. Maybe she shouldn’t feel so much anger toward a Ferengi kid in over his head but she had to be mad at something, and she’d trusted him, maybe against her better judgement.

“I— I—"

Nog stood in front of her stuttering. And some of that iciness melted. She bent down just a little to look at him more closely. “What?” she said again.

“I got you something!” He shoved the purse at her so quickly that she jumped back a little.

Her expression was quizzical when she opened it and peered inside.

“They’re pills! To put that Cardassian to sleep. The one who hurts you. I tried them tonight. They worked. And there’s a dermal regenerator, too so my uncle can’t ever keep you out again. But maybe you won’t have to use it. If the soporif works. You just drop it into his drink. He’ll get too sleepy to touch you. So you won’t have to use the regenerator. I can put the soporif in if you’re nervous. I did it tonight. It worked. There was this Telerite and—"

Ola’s confusion changed to gleaming joy and she crouched all the way down to look at Nog face to face. She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and his rambling stopped quickly. “This is amazing,” she said. “Nog, you are amazing. How did you ever?”

“Well, Moogie did teach me a lot about riding the Great Material Continuum—even if Uncle Quark said she shouldn’t.”

“I guess being compared to your grandmother really is a compliment.” Ola pulled Nog close in a fierce hug. “I’m going to give you a much bigger cut of my tips.”

“How much bigger?”

“Three slips.”

“A strip.” Nog was a Ferengi after all.

“Five slips.”

“Done.”


End file.
